The world would keep going, but it would be very damaged. Millions of peoples memories and photos would disappear and millions of connections between people would be permanently severed.

That cute girl you hooked up with in Thailand that said she'd message you when she's visiting SF: gone. The cousin you really get along with that you never see anymore since her father passed away: no more casual reminders she exists. No more university friends.

There's such arrogance on HN about Facebook but it makes a bigger difference to ordinary people's lives than any other website.

There are challenges, but what do you expect Zuckerberg to do? Let fake news and bullshit, unchecked viral opinions go wild? The smart people are leaving the small towns for the cities and it's destroying the ability for smaller communities to make sense of the world. We need a way of protecting fake news and propaganda from spreading through our social networks.

The Facebook isn't run by some scheming cabal of evildoers.